How far can a person's journey back home be, and how difficult is it? Taking a train from the big city to the county seat, changing four modes of transportation along the way, the road becomes narrower and narrower, the sky becomes darker and darker, and the heart becomes more and more lonely.
's film "Night Is Coming", which is currently being released in theaters, captures the plight of young people wandering in the city: there is nowhere to stay in the big city and they cannot return to their hometown.
In 2020, Haodong Suga has just turned thirty. According to traditional Chinese thinking, everything you should have in your third year has not been achieved. The film and television industry was in turmoil, and he had no films to film for a long time. Also in this year, his grandfather passed away. On the way back from Beijing to his hometown in Shanxi to attend his grandfather's funeral, a friend called Haodong Suga to tell him that the self-built apartment they rented was no longer available. In a video sent by his friend, Haodong Suga saw that his luggage had been thrown away. come out.
"I lost a lot of things at that time. My grandfather left, and my children, friends, favorite stars, and directors left one after another. It seemed that every day, you were saying goodbye to many people." For Koudong Suga at the time, Creation becomes an outlet for emotions.
In order to film "Night Is Coming", Haodong Suga borrowed an online loan to pay labor fees to the crew, and completed the filming in 20 days in the cold winter of 2021. At the Sixth Pingyao International Film Festival at the beginning of last year, "Night Is Coming" won three honors: Fei Mu's Best Film Honor, Movie Fan Choice Honor, and Tong Ye Honor. The bonuses he received helped him pay off his previous debts. A year later, the film was released. As of January 30, the film had a box office of 510,000 and 13,000 moviegoers. When
was interviewed by China Business News, Haodong Suga was in the middle of a roadshow to promote the film, having visited more than 20 cities from north to south. Haodong Suga said that he was already very content. "I used to be underground all the time. I worked in a mine five hundred meters deep. The film was edited in a basement in Beijing for a year, and now I finally reached the horizon. Although I didn't go beyond the horizon, I was just standing on the horizon, but I could see the sun. "
From Coal Miner to Film Director
"You have become who you are today, whether you followed your own heart or the rules of the majority." In the director's self-report, Haodong Suga wrote. If he followed the rules of most people, then at this moment, like most of his childhood friends, he should be working in a coal mine, have a stable job, and start a family.
In 1989, Jian Haodong was born in a village under Hequ County, Shanxi Province. There are large and small coal mines scattered around the village, and the survival of the villagers depends on the huge industry of coal mines. Jian Haodong's parents were both coal miners. His grandfather worked in the mines all his life, and his second uncle passed away due to a mining accident. "My father is getting older. After he turned 55, the coal mine no longer wanted him, so he went to work as a security guard at the mine for a few years. Later, he felt he was getting too old, so he went home to farm."
Parents paved the way for Suga Haodong One path is to major in coal mining and work in a coal mine after graduation: "If you can become a full-time employee and have an iron rice bowl, that is something everyone would be happy to see." Before the age of 26, Haodong Suga seemed to have been on this established track. Living on. However, his love for literature, art and movies made him destined to take an unusual path.
"I have always been different from others since I was a child. I will not give in and obey others just because I have to start a family and start a career at a certain age." Suga Haodong said, "Submission will only be more painful, because what is left in my heart will always be regret. and unwilling to give in."
In 2013, after graduating from the mining major of Shanxi Datong University, Jian Haodong joined Wangzhuang Coal Mine. After more than a year, he worked on the front line of the excavation team. Every day, we work at the bottom of a 500-meter-deep well. We have to walk five or six kilometers back and forth in uphill and downhill tunnels. We work for more than ten hours at a time, cutting coal, cleaning coal, and shoveling coal. Huge coal dust scatters across the distance. He couldn't see the other person's face clearly from a distance of one meter. Haodong Suga said that during the three-month internship period, he had mastered all the skills needed to be mastered underground in coal mines: “After studying for so many years, a lot of the knowledge I learned in college is useless. I have to go down and do the work every day. After coming back, I was so tired that I just wanted to sleep."
Working in the coal mine is a kind of transition for Haodong Suga - saving money and using his spare time to think of scripts: "I studied mining and went directly to Beijing. No one in the film and television industry would want me. "At the beginning of 2015, Haodong Suga left the coal mine with the 50,000 yuan he had saved, and returned to his hometown to gather his partners to shoot the independent film "Light Blindness". This is a film about an elderly blind man in the village as the protagonist. Filming After completion, he brought the film to Beijing and began to live in Beijing.
"Light Blindness" was shortlisted for many film festivals and gained a good reputation, but it did not bring too many changes to Suga's career as a director. In In Beijing, Jian Haodong studied with some online film crews and made a living by working as a recorder and assistant director. In 2018, there were fewer and fewer jobs in the film and television industry, so he moved to Tongzhou. At the end of 2019, he moved from Tongzhou to Yanjiao, Hebei. In 2020, life and emotions fell into stagnation. Standing at the crossroads of life, Haodong Jian decided to create a script, integrating his life experience into it, and also tried to find the answer to life through creation.
The long road home of the young people who drifted from Beijing
In "Night is Coming", the protagonist Liang Zhe's return home is also the return home of Suga Haodong. The means of transportation needed on the road, the places to stop along the way, and the scenery along the way are all in Suga Haodong's mind. Wandering around for many years is a very familiar memory for him. Due to the underdeveloped local transportation, returning home has always been a toss-up.
At the end of 2019, the high-speed rail from Beijing to Datong had just been opened. Before that, Haodong Suga had to go home first. Take the green train for five and a half hours, departing around 12 o'clock in the evening, arriving in Datong at 6 o'clock the next day, then taking a bus from the passenger station to Hequ, which takes four hours, and then taking a minibus when you reach the county seat. Sometimes the bus does not go directly, and you need to take another minivan. If you can't get a bus, his father will pick him up on a motorcycle.
Jian Haodong's hometown is located at the junction of the three provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia. The Yellow River separates the three provinces, starting from the county seat. The road to the village runs along the river. In winter, the Yellow River freezes. In "Night Is Coming", the audience follows the camera and looks at the gray river, which looks like the texture of cement.
The film combines Suga Haodong's complex emotions towards his hometown , which resonates with some wandering wanderers. He described his feelings for his hometown as a "missing memory that may never come back."
Suga Haodong said: "The more we grow up, the more we may The more I miss the New Year celebrations in my hometown when I was a child. In the village, you can set off firecrackers and light fireworks every New Year. In cities, fireworks and firecrackers are not allowed. These are all prohibited. After growing up, Fa Xiao and his friends had their own families. It was no longer like in the past when so many friends could get together to play cards. Nowadays, rural areas are not like in the past. People are exodus and everyone has to go to the county town to make a living and provide an environment for their children to go to school. The childhood memories, emotions, friendship, and love can never go back to the past. "
Like Haodong Suga, the protagonist Liang Zhe of "Night Is Coming" had a very bumpy road back to his hometown. From the county town to the village, he changed four modes of transportation, including minibuses, trucks, minivans, and motorcycles. Along the way, He met familiar elders, the boy who drove a coal truck, and his first love whom he hadn't seen for many years, and even picked up a stray puppy. The fellow villagers were concerned about how he was doing outside and how much money he was making, and the friends and first love who had lost him for many years were concerned about him. Lian's interrogation forced him to face the fact that at the age of thirty, his friendship, love and family ties were all in a state of loss and deficiency. The road back home was a journey that was constantly stung by reality. But he did not stop returning to his hometown. At the end of the film, the funeral band played "The Great Victory", and Liang Zhe hurriedly searched for his lost things on the deserted hillside. A fire was ignited on the mountain, like A beam of light in the darkness.
Suga Haotong recalled the last day of filming in the twelfth lunar month of 2021, and felt that the god of film had come. During the 20-day shooting period, the first 19 days were calm, and on the last day there was strong wind and sand. and weeds blew straight into people's eyes. Against the wind, the film crew set up a machine to take two long shots, which brought a quiet and touching touch to the end of the film.That was the last stretch of Liang Zhe's journey home. His father, who was wearing mourning clothes, was driving him on a motorcycle. He hugged his father tightly and was silent all the way. The wild grass rolled up by the strong wind rolled into a ball and was blown into the narrow space from time to time. In the middle of the small road, night fell slowly in such desolation. Three years have passed since the filming of
was launched. For Suga Haodong, this risky thing finally has a result. "Just like Liang Zhe, he was very confused and wanted to find home and find what he had lost. For me, these things were finally presented to so many audiences through the movie, and it found the ultimate direction. Born like a child, being "I saw it." Haodong Suga said, "Finally, it's not that night is approaching, but I see a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of light."
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